(Human/sage)- stables and NW and overall war build

[donald1]

I have a two questions. Context: I am human/sage attacker, in a war kingdom, and an experienced noob. at 1000 acres, Baron status, 9%Military Science

1) Given humans already large nwpa issues (mainly stemming from knights), is the increased NW from stables too much? i.e. should they be included in war build?

2)will you please critique my war build (preferably with rationale)

Farms: 6.5%
TG: 17.0%
Rax: 8.0%
Forts: 13.0%
GS: 9.0%
Hosp: 17.0%
Guilds: 12.0%
Tower: 6.0%
WT: 10.0%
Dgns: 1.5%

If I were to build stables, i'd probably pull 3% out of forts and 1% from GS and Wt's for total of 5%.
Also, if the opposing kingdom is light on the thievery side, i'd reduce the WT to 7% and put GS up to 12%
I might be able to go slightly lower on farms if I were to run FL and NB all the time. is that extra percentage worth it though?

[noobium]

1 )Just to clear - NW/A IS NOT IMPORTANT. nw efficiency per troop, and nw efficiency of everything in your province, is important but not even the highest priority for a core attacker. At 0.6nw per point, ponies are the most efficient raw offense in the game aside from mercs/prisoners which add no nw, but are also impractical in large numbers.

There are reasons to build or not build stables, but nw/a or nw-efficiency is certainly not one of them. They work better if you see them strictly as a way to acquire ponies, which have differences from other forms of raw offense. They're okay at lower tier, biggest complication of using stables is that they take space from economic buildings during pump and that ponies can be stolen (averted by not running too many stables and keeping horses out as often as possible).

A full human kingdom can go all-elite and have few problems with nw, as long as every human uses full elite. It is not as easy as it was before where all-elite was automatic, but it is still viable against kingdoms too disorganized to counteract effectively.

2 )I usually don't comment on builds unless there are useless buildings in there or something important omitted. Forts on Humans is a pretty good idea though.

[Nightmare_]

I have a two questions. Context: I am human/sage attacker, in a war kingdom, and an experienced noob. at 1000 acres, Baron status, 9%Military Science

1) Given humans already large nwpa issues (mainly stemming from knights), is the increased NW from stables too much? i.e. should they be included in war build?

2)will you please critique my war build (preferably with rationale)

Farms: 6.5%
TG: 17.0%
Rax: 8.0%
Forts: 13.0%
GS: 9.0%
Hosp: 17.0%
Guilds: 12.0%
Tower: 6.0%
WT: 10.0%
Dgns: 1.5%

If I were to build stables, i'd probably pull 3% out of forts and 1% from GS and Wt's for total of 5%.
Also, if the opposing kingdom is light on the thievery side, i'd reduce the WT to 7% and put GS up to 12%
I might be able to go slightly lower on farms if I were to run FL and NB all the time. is that extra percentage worth it though?

Some questions:

1. What rwpa and rtpa do you have?
2. What is your sci distribution? BPA? Do you feel you would benefit from building libraries?
3. What is your role in the KD? Heavy attacker? Are you going to be doing any thief ops?
4. How deep are you drafting? Will you need banks?

Human/sage is very flexible as a combo so your build will depend on your perceived role or playstyle. In general stables are good if you have TG already and don't have anything more important to build.

1 )Just to clear - NW/A IS NOT IMPORTANT. nw efficiency per troop, and nw efficiency of everything in your province, is important but not even the highest priority for a core attacker. At 0.6nw per point, ponies are the most efficient raw offense in the game aside from mercs/prisoners which add no nw, but are also impractical in large numbers.

A full human kingdom can go all-elite and have few problems with nw, as long as every human uses full elite. It is not as easy as it was before where all-elite was automatic, but it is still viable against kingdoms too disorganized to counteract effectively.

I disagree that NWPA is unimportant. To give you some rough calcs...

Human/sage, 920 bpa, 200 bpa pop sci, 10 libs (15.2% pop sci), baron, no homes:

30.84 ppa
5 NWPA = 5 pez/acre
16 NWPA = 4 tpa/wpa
153 NWPA = 21.84 EPA
55 NWPA = built land
10 NWPA = 920 bpa

239 NWPA total on human.
If we assume something like 130% dme and 145% ome, then 21.84 epa is 40 dpa (7.69 epa), and 135/122 opa army out (war/no war) no horse.
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Assuming orc/warrior has 1k land, 920 bpa, 200 bpa pop (9.8% pop sci) no libs, no homes, baron it will have:

28 ppa
5 NWPA = 5 pez/acre
55 NWPA = built land
16 NWPA = 4 tpa/wpa
31 NWPA = 7.69 dspa
65 NWPA = 11.3 epa
10 NWPA = 920 bpa

182 NWPA total.
If we assume something like 120% dme and 145% ome, then 11.3 epa and 7.69 dspa translates to 114.6 opa and 36.9 dpa army out no horse.

----
Now assume that these two provinces wanted to fight on equal terms (as far as NW goes, because that seems to be the standard for a "fair fight"). 239/182 = ~1.31. To fight on completely equal terms the orc would be on 1310 acres while the human would be on 1k acres.
When calculated on 1k acres (since the human and orc are on equal NW), the orc/warrior prov would have 48.3 dpa and 150.1 opa.

Now assume that, instead of full elites the human prov decides to use 7.69 dspa instead of 7.69 epa. That is a difference of 23 NWPA. 216 NWPA on the human instead of 239.
If the two provs wanted to fight on equal terms, it would be 216/182 = ~1.19. The orc would be on 1190 acres instead of 1310.
Relative to the human prov, the orc/warrior prov would have 43.9 dpa and 136.3 opa.

So to summarize it's
Human: 40 dpa 121.5/135 opa no war/war
vs
Orc: 48.3 dpa 150.1 opa (human full elite) or 43.9 dpa 136.3 opa (human dspec defense)
----
This is a theoretical illustration just to show that, contrary to what others state I do think NWPA is important, particularly in an age where one race's elites are extremely NW-heavy while having great turtle. Of course, this doesn't show any of the finer points, and I didn't actually do any calculations on DME/OME since that would involve creating builds and considering BE. The numbers are probably slightly skewed to favor human for that reason (also that sage is supafly).

Full elite has:
1. Markedly improved resistance to NM/NS (50% I believe)
2. Increased flexibility (for suiciding)
3. Ability to stock spec credits

But also has:
1. Increased elite pump time
2. Decreased capital for sci pump
3. Markedly higher NWPA

This also doesn't show the advantages of human over orc, namely ability to turtle and tog, but that's not the point of these calcs. NWPA is certainly not the be-all end-all, but it's not something to throw by the wayside. In the end it will come down to preference and kd setup, so a player wouldn't be wrong to build dspec instead of full elites or vice versa.

[Persain]

@ op, your build is good enough for a pure attacker human, though stables are a very nice addition. The NW/Acre arugment is not a reason to no include stables per Niobium post.

People could tweak it to no end but you've got the right idea. Their tweaks would be based on preferences, sizes, feel. For example i lose forts, towers and lower guilds adding stables/hospitals to my pre war build. But thats because i run a very strange prov, drastically altering builds with incoming land and know how to manage a 0 tower prov pretty well.

Now assume that these two provinces wanted to fight on equal terms (as far as NW goes, because that seems to be the standard for a "fair fight").

there's a lot of bonus's that come with high nw/acre that arent easy to measure. For example your "bigger" orc ends up having more raw thieves/wizards/peasents than the human. That means not only do they lose more def/tick when over poped but if targeted correctly are more likely to have to release military post chain when armies get in. Other examples come to mind but i dont have the hard math to back them up off the top of my head.

[noobium]

the difference between orcs and humans is that human elites defend and resist ambush to a reasonable degree, which has an effect on both post-chain play (using elites to make up for lost defense) and pre-chain play (use of semi-turtling to prevent too many deep chains, while not sacrificing potential offense). regardless of that, the nw-efficiency that matters is troop-for-troop, not overall nw/a (which is affected by way too many variables). it is a given that human knights aren't made for nw-efficiency, just like dwarf, elf, faery, and halfling elites have a dramatic effect on how those races play.

the point remains that the mounts are reasonably nw-efficient for what they do.

if i were playing humans this age i would probably use a mix of elites and defense specialists anyway, since 7nw for 4 raw defense is pretty tough; that said, humans in kingdoms i've fought haven't run into too much trouble because of their elite nw. there is still the question of actually hitting them to exploit their bad nw/a fully, otherwise it's just a slight drag on their offensive output. i predicted humans would be better as counters to attacker types, whereas orcs are designed to tear down defensive types which they do as well as ever.

[smercjd]

the difference between orcs and humans is that human elites defend and resist ambush to a reasonable degree, which has an effect on both post-chain play (using elites to make up for lost defense) and pre-chain play (use of semi-turtling to prevent too many deep chains, while not sacrificing potential offense). regardless of that, the nw-efficiency that matters is troop-for-troop, not overall nw/a (which is affected by way too many variables). it is a given that human knights aren't made for nw-efficiency, just like dwarf, elf, faery, and halfling elites have a dramatic effect on how those races play.

the point remains that the mounts are reasonably nw-efficient for what they do.

if i were playing humans this age i would probably use a mix of elites and defense specialists anyway, since 7nw for 4 raw defense is pretty tough; that said, humans in kingdoms i've fought haven't run into too much trouble because of their elite nw. there is still the question of actually hitting them to exploit their bad nw/a fully, otherwise it's just a slight drag on their offensive output. i predicted humans would be better as counters to attacker types, whereas orcs are designed to tear down defensive types which they do as well as ever.

Maybe I'm the only person in Utopia that feels this way - but I like high NWPA...I think the benefits of it are similar to that of running GS.

[noobium]

you mean you don't want enemy attackers to bloat with acres they can't use?
not that it's a big concern, but the reason for high nwpa is because peasants are superbad for warring, and raw military is good for warring.

[Nightmare_]

there's a lot of bonus's that come with high nw/acre that arent easy to measure. For example your "bigger" orc ends up having more raw thieves/wizards/peasents than the human. That means not only do they lose more def/tick when over poped but if targeted correctly are more likely to have to release military post chain when armies get in. Other examples come to mind but i dont have the hard math to back them up off the top of my head.

Yes, intuitively this makes lots of sense and is actually something not discussed at length so often. It matters much more at smaller sizes I think, esp when you start treading onto min gain territory. However this is also something taken in isolation and there are some confounding factors e.g. the Orc KD can afford to send more troops to dragon and has increased gains. Most KDs don't really think this far in-depth, imo. :p

I'd be curious to see what other examples you have and if you can come up with some #s for discussion.

[donald1]

Thank you everyone for the comments. I knew that a higher nwpa (165ish) was good because it represents your acres being pumped, but I was worried that the super nwpa's of humans this age (190's) might be bad because they make me in the same nw range as people with much higher acreage. This conversation has easied my concerns about that though. I think I will incorporate some stables.

New question:

What do you guys think about me, in effort of turtling so not to get to plump and maintaining my defense at home and wpa/tpa, utilizing the (-) hours for my hits. Combined with the rax, my troops will be returning before the target can retal, but is this too defensive/inefficient of attacking? (fyi I am the only human in my kingdom of orcs and dwarf attackers)

[Persain]

Yes, intuitively this makes lots of sense and is actually something not discussed at length so often.

These are the discussions my kd has internally and i thus i maybe only have the numbers for 10-20% that support "Strange" buiilds and high/low NW/acre strategies. If u come up with one and want the #'s i can ask my kd to forward them on ;)

New question:

What do you guys think about me, in effort of turtling so not to get to plump and maintaining my defense at home and wpa/tpa, utilizing the (-) hours for my hits. Combined with the rax, my troops will be returning before the target can retal, but is this too defensive/inefficient of attacking? (fyi I am the only human in my kingdom of orcs and dwarf attackers)

It's typically a bad idea to turtle if you dont need to. that is MOST (even ghetos) chain. If your only sending out a few spare hits here and there and had/have no real risk of being chained your military is being wasted(and dieing if you eat MS). With that said if you are unbreakable army in and only 1-2 people can break you army out using -hours/rax to avoid geting hit isnt a bad idea.

[noobium]

Thank you everyone for the comments. I knew that a higher nwpa (165ish) was good because it represents your acres being pumped, but I was worried that the super nwpa's of humans this age (190's) might be bad because they make me in the same nw range as people with much higher acreage. This conversation has easied my concerns about that though. I think I will incorporate some stables.

New question:

What do you guys think about me, in effort of turtling so not to get to plump and maintaining my defense at home and wpa/tpa, utilizing the (-) hours for my hits. Combined with the rax, my troops will be returning before the target can retal, but is this too defensive/inefficient of attacking? (fyi I am the only human in my kingdom of orcs and dwarf attackers)

-hours are way too inefficient to use them regularly. They should only be used if you need your armies home sooner for some tactical reason (like need to get your armies home before your opponent), that is really important to justify the loss of gains and loss of troop damage.

Holding armies until you can make a useful attack is a better idea, if the war is at the stage where it is obvious your opponent wants to bloat your province. Taking empty acres doesn't win a war.

Being the only human in a kingdom of orc/undead is very rough, because if people are smart they will isolate the human basically every time. Usually that will mean being land chained or controlled with massacre + ops, or just ops.

[donald1]

i'm actually the only human in an orc/dwarf attacker kingdom, and my defense is strong enough so that i am either unbreakable or that breaking me would require them to send full army. in which case i, and my kingdom, could 3 or 4x them. i just don't want to get land fat and lose my science and wpa/tpa beneifts early in war becuase i am numerically strong.


New, new Question:

Why does the human ome bonus not seem to be showing in my military screen (and yes i am at war).?

[donald1]

to elaborate, my ME is 120.9% and my OME is 124.9% (TG's comming online in 2 ticks). Shouldn't my OME be 130.9%?

[noobium]

the human bonus does not show on throne room or military advisor. it will show the correct offense in war room (if you select a kingdom you are at war with, obviously).